Uh, Podcasts aren't "Music" —

Google Play Music Podcasts launches today

US and Canadian users should see the podcast store on the Web and Android.

Note: Google Play Music Podcasts is not launching outside of the US and Canada. Google is looking to bring the service to other countries, but doesn't yet have anything to announce.

Google Play Music Podcasts has finally launched. Back in October, Google announced that it was jumping back into podcast distribution and began accepting RSS feeds to build a podcast store. In what was seemingly an accident, the feature briefly went live for some users in February. But today, Google says the feature will officially go live on the Web and roll out to Android devices. There's no mention of an iOS launch, but it can't be far behind.

Google Play Music Podcasts sticks a podcast store right in the Google Play Music interface. You can search for and subscribe to your favorite shows and then play them everywhere Play Music works. Play Music will occasionally check for new episodes and download them automatically. To start, the store is only live in the US and Canada.

The addition of podcasts makes the Google Play Music app an even busier place. The app is now home to podcasts, an online music locker, a Pandora-style radio system, hand-curated playlists from Google's Songza acquisition, an à la carte music store, and an all-you-can-eat music subscription service. This is also the first non-music content offered in an app called Google Play Music. Mashing everything into a single catch-all audio app means it should be easy to get podcasts to work on Android TV, Android Wear, and Android Auto, but it makes the interface a bit more complicated.

Ron Amadeo
Ron is the Reviews Editor at Ars Technica, where he specializes in Android OS and Google products. He is always on the hunt for a new gadget and loves to rip things apart to see how they work. Emailron.amadeo@arstechnica.com//Twitter@RonAmadeo